When performing construction works, particularly road construction works, for example, the removal and/or renewal of road surfaces, intermediate storage vehicles are sometimes used, which, depending on the exact operating conditions, collect or intermediately store various types of bulk material, such as milled material, and, for the purpose of hauling it away or processing it, deliver it via a material delivery conveyor device, for example, a belt conveyor, for example, to a provided transport or construction vehicle, for example, a road paver. For reasons of efficiency, such material delivery frequently occurs simultaneously with the regular construction process. Thus, the core task of such intermediate storage vehicles lies in the transitional intermediate storage of bulk material in an ongoing work process. Moreover, it is known that the work machines themselves comprise storage means for bulk material, however the storage capacity of such intermediate storage means is naturally comparatively small. This is known, for example, with road pavers with their commonly used paving material hoppers.
A configuration of an intermediate storage vehicle known in the prior art relates to an intermediate storage vehicle having an intermediate storage tank or intermediate storage means for receiving bulk material and a material delivery conveyor device, using which the bulk material can be conveyed and dropped from the intermediate storage tank to a material delivery location.
Particularly, when using road-milling machines for removing road surfaces, in view of the continually increasing performance of these machines, there is a need for improving the handling of the milled material incurred during the milling process to enable the milled material to be efficiently hauled away. Currently, hauling the milled material away frequently constitutes a bottleneck for the entire process, particularly with increasing milling depths. Such a ground milling machine is disclosed, for example, in DE 10 2009 041 842 A1 of the same applicant. During operation, the road milling machine moves, for example, in a working direction along a roadway, while a rotating milling drum of the road milling machine equipped with milling chisels mills the road surface. The bulk material-like milled material incurred in the process is then transferred via a material delivery conveyor device, typically a belt conveyor, to an accompanying transport vehicle. After a short period, the transport vehicle reaches its maximum carrying capacity and must be replaced with another transport vehicle. During this replacement of the transport vehicles, the operation of the road milling machine must be briefly halted because the milled material produced cannot be transferred to a transport container during the process of replacing the transport vehicles.
The object of the present invention is to improve and design more efficiently the handling of bulk material in a harvesting or work process, particularly a milling process, to enable a smoother and more efficient overall work process.